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Missing US Fighter Jets Feared to Have Crashed in Collision
The two US F15 fighter bombers missing Monday while carrying out a low-flying training mission over the Scottish Highlands were feared to have crashed in a collision and a difficult search for the pilots was continuing in the highlands, an official from the British Royal Air Force (RAF) said Tuesday.
It is feared that the planes crashed after they collided in midair and rescuers are holding out little hope of finding the pilots alive,RAF spokesman Michael Mulford said.
A smaller-scale search was carried out overnight but nothing was found, he added.
The F15 jets vanished from radar screens Monday as they flew over the Cairngorms on a training flight from their base at Lakenheath, Suffolk of Scotland.
The search is concentrating on Ben Macdui but efforts are being hampered by difficult weather conditions.
"Conditions are pretty difficult near the summit, the temperature is down to 7 below zero Celsius and the wind chill takes that to 24 minus Celsius," Mulford said.
Up to 250 searchers including RAF personnel, police and civilians are involved in the hunt for the missing pilots and their planes.
The search is following the track the jets were believed to be taking when they vanished.
The pilots' last radio message referred to Ben Macdui but officials said it is not known whether they were flying over it or to one side of it at the time.
The single-seat F-15C aircraft, among the U.S. Air Force's most effective fighters, lost radio contact at about 1:15 p.m. (1215 GMT) Monday.
Unconfirmed local media reports said "a member of the public" was hearing an explosion in the mountainous area at about the same time.
A British Tornado fighter-bomber used heat-seeking infrared equipment on Monday to try to detect any trace of the planes' engines against the snow-covered earth. Rescuers also combed the area on foot, Reuters reported.
Two U.S. Air Force MH-53 helicopters also joined the search in Scotland on Tuesday, officials said.
A spokeswoman of the U.S. airbase at Lakenheath from where the two planes were carrying out their mission said that so far "We have heard no new news. We hope that our pilots are alive and want them back, but there was little hope they could come back alive."
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